Let me start by saying I really respect the mods at BNR. You guys do an amazing job of putting politics aside to enforce the rules. I don’t always agree with the rules, but I am in awe of your ability to enforce those rules in a neutral, apolitical manner.
That’s why I’m bringing this dicsussion to your attention. Please feel free to close the matter without even responding to me, because I trust you guys to do whatever you believe is the right thing to do. I had these interactions with Rawr today. I’m not trying to cherrypick; I assume you folks can see the full discussion.
At one point Rawr wrote this:
“All of your preferred policy positions support Hamas.”
No they don’t.
And on countless occasions i have stated specifically:
I DO NOT SUPPORT HAMAS AND I AM NOT ANTI-SEMITIC.
Is that clear enough for you?
I despise terrorists and Zionists equally.
And they are often one and the same.
Now frankly, go screw yourself over your baseless and offensive accusations.
Any more of this shit and I’ll take it to the Den and have you banned.
Cleearly he’s threatening to ban me for life for disagreeing with him. I’m not sure that’s great behavior from a mod, but I completely leave it up to you to decide.
The second interaction was worse, in my mind. He wrote this:
“I despise Israel as a state, it’s government and those that support such a government. Jewish or otherwise.
It is YOU conflating my opinions as anti-Semitic. I can assure you I am not.
Are you Jewish? Answer me that.”
Demanding to know whether or not I’m Jewish (and, for the record, I’m not), certainly conveys the sense that Jews are somehow less than other people. I don’t expect other CMs to be held to this standard, but I bexpect mods would be a little more neutral in their comments.
I’ll be transparent. I don’t think Rawr should be a mod, but that’s not my decision and I know that. At the lesast, someone should tell him to leave his politics at the doorstep. I fully recognize that it’s not my place to make that call here, but I’m offerring my honest critique in the hopes of making this a more dynamic, intersting community. I won’t be even slightly offended if you disregard my comments, but I do want you to know they come from a place of good intentions for the community and they do not come from anger at Rawr. You guys chastised me a few weeks ago about my comments to Rawr and I deserved it. I’m just trying to maintain the same high level of quality discussion with my comments here.